


We should live until we die

by ashcat



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, Trapped, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/pseuds/ashcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things don’t go as planned while Sherlock and Joan are searching for a homeless witness to a murder in an abandoned building in the Creedmore State Mental Hospital complex. When the floor of a room they’re walking through gives way, they end up injured and alone waiting for rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We should live until we die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmmaDeMarais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaDeMarais/gifts).



> Big thanks to my mystery elf for the cheerleading, beta'ing at ridiculous hours, and being a great friend.  
> Title taken from _The Gambler_ by .fun  
>  Note: Brief medical gore related to a broken bone

Sherlock shook his head, spots dancing in front of his eyes as he tried to get his bearings. ‘Asbestos, mold, medical debris, lead paint from the ceiling,’ he found himself cataloguing what was most toxic in the dust cloud that enveloped the basement area. He dug out his cell phone from his pocket and saw that its screen had shattered. He tried it anyway and while the screen would come on, it didn’t seem to be functioning beneath the spiderweb of cracks. 

He had told Joan to halt. If only he’d noticed the way the flooring was sagging a bit sooner, they’d not be in this situation. 

It had been a longer fall than he’d expected. They must have dropped through to the basement. At least it wasn’t flooded like many abandoned buildings lower levels were. He flexed his extremities and found that besides his wrist being quite sore and a few nasty cuts and bruises, he seemed mostly fine. 

The low moan coming from the right of him said that Watson hadn’t been as lucky. He pulled out his small torch and pointed it in her direction. “Watson?” 

With no immediate reply, Sherlock felt a pang of concern. He carefully stood, testing his ankles, but besides the right one feeling strained, he seemed sound. He carefully picked his way across the rubbish on the floor to stand in front of Watson. Sherlock was not surprised by the blood and injuries he could see, but he was concerned. He had hoped she’d know how to fall better than this. 

He should have taught her. It was something a detective needed to know. She could have had a chance at avoiding serious injury. 

“Watson, look at me. What’s hurt besides your leg?” Sherlock moved some splintered, twisted boards to the side so he could kneel beside her and assess the damage. Her leg looked a sight. The white bone, poking grisly up from her thigh, seemed to glow with a small pool of blood dark around the ragged torn skin. 

Joan stirred a bit, head coming up as she groaned, eyes slitted. “Wha-?” 

“The floor gave way and we’ve fallen. You’ve hurt your leg,” Sherlock said briskly as he leaned over to make sure the femoral artery wasn’t damaged. There was blood, but it was sluggishly pumping out and pooling, not pouring down onto the grimey concrete. Good. 

“Ow… my leg,” Joan moved to touch her leg and when she brushed against the side of her thigh, her eyes opened wide and she jerked with a yelp. “Fuck!” 

Sherlock leaned in to check her pupils, holding her head still as she tried to pull away from him. Her pupils were equal and reactive. She might be dazed from the fall. Unfortunately, when he pulled his hand back from her head it had a large smear of red.

Blood.

“What else hurts?” he asked. Sherlock shuffled to the side to part her hair and find where the blood was coming from. 

“Everything…” Joan said, then coughed and let out a guttural groan of pain. “Everything hurts.” 

Sherlock found the head wound. Luckily, it was not deep and only a few centimeters long. He pulled out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and used his teeth to rip a small strip from it. He wadded it against her head . “Hold that while I check the rest.” 

“Ow!” Joan complained as Sherlock pushed against her head. She unsteadily moved to take the wad of cloth from him to press against her head to staunch the bleeding. 

“Where does it hurt? Be specific, ‘everywhere’ is not an answer. You know to be precise,” he chided, mouth on autopilot as he looked her over for more injuries. Sherlock catalogued the trembling of her hand but dismissed it for now as a reaction to the adrenaline that must be flooding her system at the moment. 

“My left wrist, right leg, lower back, and left shoulder.” She paused, breathing shallowly with pain. “My shoulder, I think it’s out. Possible cracked collarbone.” 

Sherlock eased her arm out of her coat sleeve so he could feel it properly. With the way she screamed in response, it left little question on the state of her injury. 

“It’s out,” Sherlock said as he felt along her left shoulder blade, holding the small torch in his mouth. He prodded gently around the area. It was out, but not so far that he wasn’t confident he could put it back. He placed his torch on the ground. “I’m going to reduce it on three. One-” 

“Wait, Sher-- AAAAAHHHH!” Joan screamed as Sherlock settled her shoulder back into socket with a loud clunk as he pulled on her arm hard. “Fuck, fuck,” she stopped putting pressure on her head to hold her left arm in place to her chest. 

“See, not so bad,” Sherlock said, as he unwound his scarf. He could bind her arm to her chest with it. While crude, it would hold her shoulder in place for now. 

“Not so bad? You could have trapped a nerve…” 

Joan continued rambling about possible complications as Sherlock carefully secured her arm with his scarf. He ended up tuning her out. It was probably shock making her ramble so.

He checked the color and the blood return in her fingertips and it was good. Her wrist was warm and caused her to hiss when he handled it, but otherwise it seemed fine. Probably a bad sprain. He checked her collarbone and could clearly see the break in it, but it was closed so he would leave it alone for now. It wasn’t like she was going to be moving around with her leg. 

He finished by picking up his bit of handkerchief that fell to the floor from her head and putting it back against the wound and tying it off with the rest of the cloth. It would have been comical seeing her with the white linen tied in a knot on her forehead if it hadn’t been such a serious situation.

Once he had her upper body tended to, Joan had settled into shallow, rapid breaths and had stopped speaking. Sherlock shifted on his knees so he could have a look at her legs. 

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” She asked, voice quiet in the dusty room. 

Sherlock knew she couldn’t really see it properly with how dim the light was and the angle she was sitting at. Instead of answering straight away, he moved her skirt out of the way and began inspecting the injury closely.

“Your artery appears intact, but it’s an open fracture,” Sherlock told her clinically as he lifted the hem of her skirt back as far as it would go, exposing the injury to her as well. 

“Fuck,” Joan said, eyeing the bone sticking out of her thigh. Her foot was flopped over way more than she’d be able to if her leg weren’t broken, and the skin around the protruding bone was black with bruising, blood oozing from the wound.

She paled as Sherlock watched her, keen to note any change in her paller since she could be losing blood internally. He couldn’t really feel her abdomen with how she was sitting and he wasn’t going to move her until her leg was ready to be dealt with. 

“We are going to bandage and splint that.” 

“No,” Joan said, staring at her injury. “No, that could make it worse. We don’t know if there are bone shards near my femoral artery. It’s going to need surgery. How far out is the ambulance?” 

At least Joan finally sounded more like herself with her clipped voice giving a medical opinion. “There is no ambulance. My phone’s shattered and I haven’t tried to retrieve yours. I would imagine there is little signal in this basement though. “ Sherlock looked around, shining his penlight around the concrete walls surrounding them. “This was built approximately mid 1920s, poured concrete for the basement and foundation. The walls are thick and will hamper the signal.”

Sherlock looked back at her after regarding the room. “We need to get your leg seen to before we plan an escape.” 

“I am not really keen on you _seeing to_ my leg at the moment if help isn’t that far away.”

She was so stubborn sometimes. This was a bad time for that. Sherlock always found those flashes of stubborness inconvenient. Didn’t she see that help was far from close by? They hadn’t told anyone where they were going, and Gregson or Bell might notice their absence, but it’d take a day probably, at least 12 hours. Sammy might find them since they had been searching for him before the floor gave way. But Sherlock was no longer convinced that this was Sammy’s main squat if the building was this unstable. 

This had been too dangerous for someone not experienced with urban exploration. It was a mistake to have brought her here. He should have come alone.

“Well, I’m not eager to do it, but an ambulance _isn’t_ coming anytime soon.” Sherlock stood and gingerly picked his way around the immediate basement area, looking for something suitable to use for splinting. 

At least with the floor falling through, there were ample pieces of wood in varying lengths around him. They had ventured onto the gymnasium and the wooden floor just couldn’t take their weight. He’d warned Watson to not walk any further but it’d been too late. It had been too late when she’d followed him over the fence into Creedmore State Mental Hospital.

He used his light to give Watson another appraising look and snapped the jagged edge off a long length of board using leverage with his foot. That was to be the long piece, and then he found another for the shorter that he’d need. 

“It’s going to have to go up to my armpit,” Joan said, starting to visibly tremble. 

Sherlock didn’t reply. He knew it would need to go within a couple inches of her armpit and all the way to her foot. He was well aware of advanced first aid, though he’d primarily learned it so that he could treat himself in the field as needed. 

He’d never planned on having a partner in this. A colleague he would work closely with on his investigations. He’d always handled things alone until meeting her. Watson was someone that he genuinely cared for, and now she was lying on the filthy floor with part of her femur jutting out of her thigh. And Sherlock was at fault. She was someone he felt responsible for. Responsible for both his and her actions. Sherlock gave his head a tiny shake. He must be a bit addled from the fall to let those kind of thoughts intrude when he needed to be seeing to Watson’s injuries. 

“It’s too bad I’m no longer using or you’d have some pain relief for this,” he said cheerily as he returned with the wood. Part of him was craving an escape from the guilt he felt over this entire situation. Wanted to take any excuse to leave his head for a bit, to blunt the world around them.

“What?” Joan asked, blinking slowly. “No. You’re better without the drugs.” She wrapped her unbandaged arm around herself as if she were cold. 

Sherlock took his jacket off, then started pulling his sweater off as well. 

“I’m going into shock, not suffering from hypothermia…” Joan said, staring at him.

“Quite right.” Sherlock proceeded to pull his white undershirt off then redressed himself hurriedly. It was quite cold down here. He started ripping his shirt into precise five centimeter strips the long way around using his pocket knife. 

“Ties….” Joan looked down at her leg, then paled as she looked away from it again. “And bandaging.” 

Not seeing a reason to restate the obvious, Sherlock kept working on the shirt in silence. He made quick work of it. He had just enough ties to secure the boards but he needed liner material as well. He looked Joan over critically. “Are you wearing pants?”

Joan frowned, then looked down at her black skirt, then back up at Sherlock. “I know I’m a little out of it, but I’ve got a skirt on?” 

“No, pants.” Sherlock flapped his hand at her lap. 

“Skirt?” 

“Women’s… undergarments?”

“Panties?” Joan asked, frowning as if she were thinking hard. 

“Yes, well, we call those pants. Do you have some on?” He was trying to protect her modesty here. It wouldn’t bother him if she were nude below the waist but he thought it would bother her.

“Of course.” 

“Great.” Sherlock knelt down and started cutting at the seam of Joan’s skirt along the hip of her injured leg. 

“He--” she cut off as she realized what Sherlock was doing. “Material to wrap around my leg under the splint?” 

“Yes.” Sherlock looked at her. What else would have him removing her skirt? 

“Is help really that far away that we have to do this ourselves?” 

The worry that tinged her voice tugged at Sherlock’s mind. This is why letting people in could be such a problem. Normally, someone’s tone of voice had no bearing on Sherlock’s mental faculties, but with Joan, the strain of her being in pain plus the real worry for their situation… affected him. It was bothersome and strange. Sherlock didn’t want to worry about anyone; didn’t want to have his mind troubled by other people’s feelings. 

“Yes.” Sherlock said more tersely. He had found Watson’s phone while he was looking for boards. It was smashed just like his. “I am, however, working on a plan for our escape.” 

“Working on?” Joan said. 

He paused cutting the seam on the other side of her skirt to look at her. “I will get us out of here.” 

“I know. I trust you,” she said, staring right back at him.

Somehow, those words made his stomach lurch a bit in addition to what it did to his head. He _really_ shouldn’t have brought her into such a dangerous environment without the proper training. That was his fault as well; her training had lapsed a bit as they had been busier with cases in the last few weeks. 

Shoddy thinking, dodgy mentorship. Sherlock shouldn’t have taken on a partner if he couldn’t keep them safe from something as mundane as an abandoned hospital. 

He lifted the front and sides of her skirt off and was pleased to see she did in fact have on pants. He looked at her leg and back at the immediate area around them, assessing. He was going to have to clean off the debris behind Watson so she could lay down. Then he’d have room to work on her leg properly. He’d have to risk moving her leg enough to flatten the material under her knee and calf. Her shoe was lost somewhere amidst the rubble so her bare foot was also of concern to protect from the rough boards. 

“I had never really thought about you ever undressing me.” She gave a nervous giggle. “Not that...well not that I ever wanted that at least,” she said sobering a bit. “I think… I think I’m going to have to lay down.”

Sherlock looked over and was displeased to see that her face had paled when he shone the light directly on it. The shock was starting to really take hold. “Nearly done clearing space,” replied in his ‘I’m busy’ voice. 

The boards squealed and groaned like ghosts as Sherlock carefully moved them open up room to work. His wrist twinged and hurt as he did so but he tried not to show it. Watson’s breathing sounded rapid and shallow in between the cries from the boards. Whatever vermin were in here with them must have been too scared by the noise to be venturing out at the moment since he could only hear water dripping in the distance beyond their human sounds.

“Maybe...all the noise will attract attention?” 

“Doubtful,” he said in a clipped tone. Though it seemed loud in the cement-walled basement, it was probably barely noticeable from outside the perimeter fencing.

“Always so hopeful,” Joan said with a humorless chuckle.

“You know me. Ms. Mary Sunshine.” Sherlock’s mouth worked on autopilot as he picked at the Jenga-like mess of boards to keep anything from collapsing on them. 

“Too bad we don’t have some sunlight down here. It’s dark...and cold.” She shivered then yelped in pain. 

Sherlock took his coat off and put it around her shoulders, buttoning the front button to keep it on her. He was working hard enough that he didn’t need it at the moment, and shivering had to hurt her shoulder fiercely.

“Thanks.” Joan lapsed into silence except for the occasional whimper of pain. 

“Let’s get these around you while you’re sitting up.” He quickly slip knotted the ripped shirt around her upper body so they’d be mostly in place when he needed them. 

“I feel sick,” Joan admitted as Sherlock was working with the strips of cloth. 

“Try not to vomit, there isn’t enough floor space clear for me to move you away from it.” 

“Will do.” Joan gave Sherlock a wan smile in reply.

“Okay,” Sherlock said upon finishing with the ties. “Raise your arm and curl it behind your head to protect your injury and then I’ll help you lie back.” He moved in behind her and waited until she’d complied before placing his hands on her good shoulder and her injured arm’s tricep. 

“The space is clear behind you. I’ve got you, now slowly lay back.” Sherlock could feel the rigid tension in her muscles and the tremors going through her body as she placed more of her weight into his hands as she laid back. 

Joan cried out a few times as the change in position hurt her various injuries. She had blood on her bottom lip Sherlock noticed, probably biting it like an idiot. Screaming was going to be part of this, and Joan was too skilled as a physician not to know that. 

Once he had her safely lying, Sherlock let her get her breath a moment, studiously ignoring the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes into her hair. 

“That gone off a bit now?” He said after a few minutes.

“Yeah,” Joan’s voice sounded raspy. “Yeah, shoulders settling.” 

“Should hurt a little less in that position.” Sherlock noted out loud, but more to himself than her as he eyed her critically. The lines from her injuries and her skeletal system overlaying one another in his mind as he tried to envision how it’d have shifted from what he’d felt earlier. 

“Should do,” Joan said. Then she managed a weak chuckle. “Your British is rubbing off on me.” 

“Hardly,” Sherlock said, but he flashed her his own slight upturn of mouth to show he was appreciating her attempt at levity. There was little humor in this grim situation, but he knew Joan was a bit loopy from the shock and pain. Maybe anything that would distract for a moment was worth the effort.

It was the least he could do since it was he’d caused her to be injured and trapped here.

After another couple minutes, Sherlock moved into place by her leg. He precisely positioned the first board along her armpit to ankle, and the other high against her upper thigh and extending a bit below her heel. It was impossible to find exactly the right height boards but these would do. He got her skirt fabric ready to put under her lower leg and carefully inspected everything about her leg injury again, checking for blood flow and numb spots despite Joan’s cries of pain as he touched her.

“Ready?” He asked, since he felt a bit bad about what he was about to do to her. He had broken a leg before; it was his tibia but he knew it had hurt terribly. This would be much worse. 

“Do it,” Joan said with steel in her voice. 

Sherlock worked as quickly as he dared, while also trying to minimize her suffering. Still, he was uncommonly grateful once she finally passed out. It had taken until he was bind bandages over her exposed bone for it to happen, though. She’d hung on for him shifting it more than he’d have liked to get it splinted to the boards and her skirt up around her lower leg and foot. 

It seemed like her screams continued echoing off the walls even as the room fell quiet in the aftermath. Each echo a further dig at his conscious. He worked to make her as comfortable as he could with the very limited supplies then moved to sit and come up with an escape plan.

“We’re lucky we don’t have worse injuries.” Joan said, voice hoarse and gravely after all the yelling earlier. 

It was perhaps, thirty minutes since she’d passed out. Sherlock had had plenty of time to come up with a plan and to berate himself a bit more about his carelessness that led them to being in this situation. Sherlock hadn’t noticed her eyes opening in the gloom or in his last inspection of her with his small torch. “You seem a bit worse for wear.” 

“That fall was what… twelve, fifteen feet?” Joan coughed and groaned in pain. “Plenty far enough to do spinal injuries.” 

“Six and a half meters at least. This is old construction and a hospital,” Sherlock said absently.

The rustle from Joan’s area made Sherlock look over at her, directing his torch to her. She had lifted her head and was looking at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Summoning aid.” 

“Sitting there with a penlight?” 

“I’m carefully directing my torch at the exposed metal up above and sending out a message to anyone who can see it.” 

“You’re… making an SOS signal with a penlight in an abandoned mental hospital? That’s our escape plan?” Joan’s voice held incredulity. 

“Sammy Bryant was a sailor on the Alamo during the Vietnam War. He should be well versed in Morse code as he worked in shipboard communications. When he sees our message, he’ll come to investigate.” Sherlock felt confident that this would work. It had to. Otherwise, he’d have to see if he could find a way out of this room, but with his wrist and ankle both hurting and Joan being so seriously injured, he didn’t feel comfortable leaving her or attempting to climb out onto the unstable structure above. 

“Morse code… That’s our method of escape in 2013?” She shook her head then groaned at the movement. 

“We use what works and is available to complete a case. Right now that’s signalling with a torch. I’ve escaped worse situations with less.” 

Joan lapsed into silence, her breathing labored. “I have to admit, I kind of wish you were holding right now. Not using, just holding. Because, well…”

“Keep taking deep, even breaths. You’re stable and not losing much blood,” Sherlock said, wishing himself that he had drugs on him because he could hear the pain in her voice and it cut into him. He hoped they’d be out of this soon, but he knew better than to say that kind of nonsense. There was no telling how long they’d be here if his signal wasn’t seen. 

“How is my capillary refill?” She asked. 

“Good last check. Any numb spots?” 

Sherlock watched her flex her toes. The resulting groan was not surprising.

“Not that I can feel, but it’s bound tightly so it’s hard to tell.” 

“Let’s take another look, shall we,” Sherlock said, coming over. He held the torch in his mouth directing the light onto her foot as he let her see that her lower leg and foot’s blood flow wasn’t compromised. 

“You’re limping.” Joan said. She sounded surprised as if she’d just noticed. 

“Sore ankle, nothing serious.” 

“You sure?” 

“It just hurts when I put weight through it. It has full movement and isn’t excessively swollen.” 

Joan seemed to stare at him a couple minutes more before she relaxed back flat from how she’d pushed herself up to see him. The room fell as silent as it could be in a creaking, leaking building. 

Within a couple minutes Sherlock had his torch-sent SOS shining again from the spot he’d picked on the floor for the best vantage. 

“Thank you,” Joan said, after a long stretch of silence. 

The torch stopped sending its signal as Sherlock turned it on Watson again. He felt so incredulous at that statement he wanted to check her eyes and face for signs of deliriousness. “Pardon?”

“Thank you,” she said again, looking straight at him. “You handled my treatment well. I know it’s hard working on a friend.” 

Sherlock blinked at her, stunned at those words. It was his fault she was injured and even needed the care. And she was _thanking_ him for it? “Are you feeling more ill? Hot?” 

He’d buttoned his coat over her when he’d finished with her leg to keep her warm and help ward off the worst of the shock. Maybe she was already spiking a fever? She would have infections from her femur break, but it seemed quite soon. Had he missed something?

“No. I feel the same level of shit as I did ten minutes ago.”

He came over and gingerly felt her forehead then her neck. 

She allowed it, just staring at him. “It’s not a fever.”

She didn’t feel much warmer than him and Sherlock was quite chilled in just his sweater and jeans. “I am surprised then.” 

“By my thanking you?” 

“Yes.”

“We may not say it often, but I do appreciate you Sherlock.” 

Sherlock was so out of his element at the moment that he shook his head without even considering the response. “My foolhardiness rendered you injured. There’s no reason to thank me.” 

“Being here may not have been the best decision, but I made the decision to follow you in here. You were right that we need Sammy to solve the case and catch Samantha Lewis’ killer. I knew the risks when I climbed over the fence after you.” 

How could she say that when she was laying there in pain from her broken leg, wrist and dislocated shoulder? “I shouldn’t have asked you to come here. You don’t have the experience for this.”

“How else will I get it if I don’t take chances with you?” Her voice carried that she’d thought about this long and hard. 

“There has to be a safer way.”

Joan did laugh now, managing a chuckle. “Nothing we do is without risk. It’s still-” her voice softened as she swallowed and continued, “still the best job I’ve ever had and I’d not trade it for something safer. I’d not trade our partnership for anything.” 

Sherlock had no idea how she could say that in this position. It stunned him, and he was for once speechless. Eventually he managed a weak, “Well then…” 

They lapsed back into silence but this time it felt less oppressive. Sherlock’s guilt, while still present for his failure to train her, was… not taking up quite so much valuable brain function. He felt like he was firing on more cylinders suddenly. 

Tapping, he thought, as he looked along the far wall’s steel piping. They should be tapping out the signal on the pipe as well. It would travel farther than his light and in conjunction they had a better chance of being found. 

Sherlock lurched to his feet and quickly made his way over to the exposed piping. They were in the basement so there were several options exposed for him to choose from. 

“What is it?” Joan asked.

“Pipes!” Sherlock exclaimed. He looked around and found a loose bit of steel piping lying on the ground from the cave in. 

“Yes?” 

“Morse code!” Sherlock said as he gleefully began to clang out SOS using the pipe in his hand to slam against the pipe on the wall. 

“Yes?” Joan asked again, her voice still full of confusion. 

“We can tap our message like the British POWs did in World War II.” Sherlock started to alternate his tapping and light messages.

“The POWs used steel pipe to pass messages?” 

“Yes, it became a large problem eventually and was outlawed in the camps. It then transferred into Her Majesty's Prisons domestically and is still being used in the old buildings with accessible radiators or steel pipe.” Sherlock talked excitedly, finally feeling like they were getting somewhere. 

His enthusiasm didn’t wane as the time stretched on to an hour, with him and Joan occasionally talking about the case or random things as he continued tapping and flashing his message. 

Finally, they heard something that wasn’t a pest, water dripping, or the wind. Sherlock fell silent to listen. Those were definitely footfalls. The question now was if they were friendly or not. He looked over at Joan with the light pointing towards her and saw that she had a worse pallor than before; they had to get out of here as soon as possible. 

He felt confident he could talk his way out of most anything. There had been that hostage situation back in London and he’d managed that. He could handle a threat from a person better than the threat of infection and thirst down here.

Decision made, Sherlock began to shout and bang on the pipe in a frenzy. 

When Craig Baskin‘s face and uniform became visible past the edge of the caved in floor, Sherlock stopped his noise making. Craig shone his large torch beam down onto them. 

“Sherlock and Joan?” Craig asked, squinting as Sherlock shone his torch up at him in turn.

“We require immediate medical assistance as well as a team to help us evac Watson. She’s got an open fracture of her femur, dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and possibly fractured wrist, as well as a minor head wound.” 

As Craig radioed for what they would require, Sherlock thought he might have to reconsider his dismissal of the guy. Especially when Craig explained, as they waited for reinforcements, that he was staking out a drug dealer who was doing some transactions near the fence and he heard tapping that sounded like Morse code to him. His father had been into amateur radio, he explained, so he knew a lot of the basic messages from helping with that as a child. 

Once help arrived, it was a bit of a challenge to get Watson out with the instability of the floor, but the fire department managed it with a basket and quite a bit of ingenuity. Bell arrived on scene and made sure everyone knew they were helping friends of the force. Sherlock thought that Bell’s pep talk to the fire crew should be unnecessary, but he wanted them to be as safe and careful with Watson as they could be. If this helped, then all the better.

When they were both finally out, Sherlock limped along with Watson’s stretcher as they rolled her towards the ambulance. She was a bit gray with the pain from all the jolting. She’d not been able to have any pain relief until she was topside. The crew hadn’t been willing to toss down a syringe of morphine even though Sherlock was more than qualified to inject her. 

As they were about to load her, with another medic flitting around Sherlock trying to get him to sit down since he was limping heavily, Joan grabbed his hand that was clasped to the rail of her bed. 

“Thank you,” she said emphatically, “for everything.” 

Sherlock let go of the rail to grasp her hand back. “I’m sorry. For all of it.” 

“Didn’t your mother teach you,” she said, still breathing fast and shallow, “that the correct answer is ‘You’re welcome’?” 

“That’d be my governess, and yes, well,” Sherlock looked around at the chaos surrounding them. “You’re welcome,” he finally managed to say, not a phrase he used often as a child. Or ever, really. 

“Maybe, that’s something I can teach you,” she said, and let go of his hand so they could put her in the ambulance. 

“You teach me something new every day,” Sherlock said softly as he watched the doors close. He hoped what he learned from this experience would translate into them both being safer in the future. If Watson was going to follow him into these situations, then he was going to have to evaluate dangerous situations differently.

He’d have to figure out what risks to _her_ , his partner, were worth taking.


End file.
